Young couple living in a walkup on the Lower East Side in the 1950s with more love than money fixes up their apartment.


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Producer: Hartley Productions, Inc.
Sponsor: Star Bronze Company
Audio/Visual: Sd, B&W
Keywords: Houses and homes

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: BondoFox - - June 22, 2008
Subject: Educational for the Furniture Refinishing n00b
Okay, if you're going to refinish furniture, don't you have to restart?

...

Good little flick. The only problems I had were details. Jack -- if that is his REAL name -- is using paint stripper without proper ventilation, with a closed window *right behind him*!

Neither one of them were wearing goggles.

And Jill was spraypainting an empty frame and later a wooden chair with an open back, with nothing to protect the carpeting or surrounding stuff from stray spraying paint.

Now the REALLY funny/ironic part: I Googled the address given at the end for ordering the booklet -- that box is now assigned to the Environmental Protection Agency! LOL's abound!

Reviewer: ERD - - August 25, 2006
Subject: Cute but a little too idealistic
A cute 1958 film but a little too idealistic to be realistic. A few important safety features are disregarded. Well acted, filmed, and directed.

Reviewer: Marysz - - September 16, 2005
Subject: This Marriage Can't Be Saved
Newlyweds Jack and Jill move into a Lower East Side tenement (complete with the once-customary nosy old lady leaning out the front window). They immediately go to work fixing up old furniture. Jack goes crazy with the paint remover and polyurethane and Jill uses up a lot of spray paint. Neither of them wears a mask or gloves. Can you imagine the fumes in that apartment? They have so much fun fixing up their hand-me-down furniture that they start browsing in antique stores and come home with a Chippendale chair. This was long before there were experts on Antiques Roadshow warning people not to refinish early American furniture, so little did Jack know that he was destroying a priceless piece of American history. By the filmÂs end, their walkup is nicely fixed up with homemade platform beds and antique pieces that give the apartment a Âunique touch, although the green satin cover on the front door that Jill devised looks sort of tacky.

But will their marriage survive? JackÂs started to fix up furniture and sell it to bring in some extra money. Jill seems more conventional of the two. For her, this apartment is just a way station before they move to the suburbs. But JackÂs having a great time wandering around the city looking for old furniture. Plus, he has a new buddyÂa very hipster looking guy, complete with goatee, who runs the local paint store. HeÂs the one who turned Jack onto polyurethane (and who knows what else). JackÂs going to start filling up the apartment with old furniture that he eventually intends to get around to refinishing and itÂs going to drive Jill nuts. SheÂll divorce Jack, move back to Long Island, marry a dentist and open an interior decorating business. Jack will stay in the city and enjoy the sixties counter-culture thatÂs just around the corner.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - June 11, 2005
Subject: This old film about this old apartment
Since we don't have many fix-up-around-the-house films in the archive, I found this film to be a bit of a delight, as we meet 'Jack and Jill' a lovely couple with not much money but a lot of varnish and paint remover (notice the sponsor?) to fix whatever furniture they have to make their rageed old house with descrepit into a stunning home of descrepit furniture!! :) They revarnish the old desk, make a bed into a couch (something my mom did in my old apartment) and made a perfectly good door into... something. Yaaa. Very fun to watch this chipper couple do their designs on their place actually. Reccomended!

Reviewer: dynayellow - - September 23, 2003
Subject: Wait... I'm not supposed to buy new things!?
What a delightful little film. A young couple with "more love than money" turn their crummy walk-up apartment into quite the showplace, by refinishing old furniture.

Lots of helpful tips on how to do this, and ends with telling you how to order booklets to tell you more. I can't help wonder, though, about all the fumes from paint and paint thinner in that tiny apartment.

Ends with the idea that the apartment has more individuality than if they'd just bought everything new. Hurray! Jack and Jill don't escape to the 'burbs, and they do all right.

Shotlist

Beautiful black and white film about young couple living in a walk-up on the Lower East Side in the 1950's with more love than money.

Young man strips paint from furniture. Couple redecorates small apartment.
Decorating Thrift New York City Decorations couples Home furnishings
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